.Kids
Domain will
file its application on Monday with the Internet
Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. The company is
the only one of several would-be TLD operators that has
publicly announced its bid to create the .com-like
domain-name spaces of the future.
Unlike
.com, .net and .org, new top-level domain registrars such
as .kids will have the authority to set policies as to the
registration and use of domain names. Those policies must
be approved by ICANN after negotiations with the would-be
registrar.
Monday
marks the deadline for applications to ICANN.
The nonprofit corporation has so far kept the number and
nature of TLD applications secret, but is expected to
release the final list sometime this week.
"There's
no quota set," said Andrew McLaughlin, ICANN's chief
policy officer. "It really depends on the quality of
applications. We want a high level of diversity."
McLaughlin
said that ICANN staffers will scrutinize the TLD petitions
for financial and technical competence before making
recommendations to the board of directors at their next
meeting in mid-November.
After
applications are posted to the Web, McLaughlin said there
will be a comment period during which the public will be
invited discuss the proposals.
Applicants
like .Kids Domains will have their plans compared to
ICANN's criteria
for accessing TLD proposals. In particular, candidates
must specify how their proposed TLD will deal with
intellectual property issues like cybersquatting.
Page Howe,
CEO of .Kids Domains, said his company has thought long
and hard about how to deal with the issue of
cyber-squatters and other trademark concerns.
In the case
of unique or famous trademarked names -- such as Xerox or
McDonald's -- Howe said that trademark holders will get a
chance to register their names before everybody else.
"In
the case of non-trademarkable generic names, we will not
allow .com domains to transfer to .kids," he said.
He used the
porn site teenfun.com as an example of both a generic term
and precisely the kind of content that will be disallowed
on .kids if the TLD is approved by ICANN.
The
company's application strikes another trademark compromise
by proposing a shared .kids domain name in cases where
competing companies have similar marks, Howe said.
Traditional
trademark law allows different companies to use the same
trademark -- say AcmeTM
-- if their product lines do not overlap or they are
geographically disparate from each other, Howe said. But
with the one-to-one limitation of domain names in .net,
.com and .org, the practical effect has been to limit the
use of trademarks on the Net to one company.
Not so with
.kids, Howe said.
"We
will offer these trademark holders the ability to have a
redirect page that lists different companies with the same
mark," he said.
In a time
when domain squatters are turning to pre-registration
schemes and trademark
law to achieve meta-registrations before new TLDs are
even approved, Howe said his company has plans to limit
the stockpiling of non-trademarked domain names, a
practice sometimes known as cyber-wildcatting.
"We
are actually requiring our registrants to have a website
within four months of registration," he said.
"We believe that having a domain name with no website
is not positive for kids."
In line
with its stated mission of providing a "green
space" for children on the Net, Howe said that
advertising and content that features porn, liquor, drugs
and guns will be forbidden.
All .kids
domain-name registrants will have to agree to comply with
existing state and federal laws relating to protecting
children, as well as the policies set by .kids TLD.
Domain-name
holders in the .kids TLD will be subject to yearly audits
to ensure that their content is safe for minors and that
the site operators are given notice of any new changes in
the law to which they must abide, he said.
"We're
adding an additional contractual obligation that says that
if you don't follow our policies we can shut you
down," Howe said. "You're only allowed to
publish things that are legal and appropriate for
kids."
Howe said
that .Kids Domains will keep its policy arm separate from
its business side. The company will appoint an
independently funded committee to work with
child-protection groups and set policy for the TLD.
.Kids
Domains will also keep its technical operations separate
from its customer service and business operations. The
company has hired Tucows
to handle the technical implementations of its registry.
Ross Rader,
director of assigned names for Tucows, said that his
company hopes to make its Open
eXtensible Registry System a technology standard for
back-end registry operations.
"It's
an extensible registry system," Rader said. "It
provides all the back-end systems for TLDs and country
code TLDs."
In addition
to .Kids Domains, Tucows will also use OpenXRS as part of
a joint TLD proposal with Network
Solutions, Register.com
and 16 other registrars. He would not, however, discuss
the details of their joint application.
Rader said
OpenXRS promises to make it easy for companies to run
registries without the technical headaches associated with
the business. To date, five groups have signed up with
OpenXRS, he said. Tucows maintains a test-bed version of a
OpenXRS called mooNIC.
